Many CSE students have Linux machines which they would like to be able to use to work away from the CSE labs. The following is a guide as to how to set up the necessary drivers/software. These instructions will be debian specific in some spots (e.g. setting up the tftp server) but they should at least give you an idea of how to set up other distributions.
The components you will need to install are:
Also, recent versions of Ubuntu are special. See this section.
Two pre-built cross-compilers are provided for you
If neither of these binaries works on your distro/platform then you are on your own to build your own cross-compiler.
You need device drivers for the RTL8150 based USB to Ethernet dongle, and
the FT232RL USB-Serial converter. Fortunately, these drivers are in the
linux kernel and are compiled by most modern distributions, so you should
be able to plug them in and see messages from the drivers via
dmesg
.
The modules required are:
If you don't have hotplug set up correctly, you may need to use modprobe:
modprobe rtl8150 && modprobe ftdi_sio
.
Of course, you might be better off throwing some effort into making
hotplug work, like in the CSE labs.
From here on in, we'll assume you can get all of this going, with the
serial converter on /dev/ttyUSB0
, and the ethernet adapter
on eth1
. Substitute these values below if your setup varies
(e.g. if you are using a real Ethernet port or network) --
dmesg
should show you what interface you get.
The AOS board expects to find a host at 192.168.168.1
. You
can change this temporarily in the bootloader, but it's easier to set up
your host to be at this address. (This is the rationale behind using an
independent network provided by the USB to Ethernet dongle.)
Set this up with
ifconfig eth1 192.168.168.1 up
The bootloader will download your software image from a tftp server running on your host. So you need to set one up:
apt-get install tftpd
Edit your /etc/inetd.conf. Change the following line to reflect the location of the directory which you want to use as your tftp root. (In this case it is /tftpboot).
tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /tftpboot
You may need to restart inetd at this point using /etc/init.d/inetd restart
You will also need to adjust your handy Makefile if you want it to automatically copy the bootimg.bin file to the tftpboot directory. The variable to look for is:
TFTPROOT
Uncomment (or add) the following line in /etc/inetd.conf :
#time dgram udp wait root internal
Install the NFS server:
$ apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap
Then set up the exports by editing /etc/exports
and adding the following lines (adjusted for the location of your tftp root directory and your username):
/var/tftpboot/USERNAME 192.168.168.2(rw,sync,all_squash,subtree_check,anonuid=UID,anongid=GID)
It is necessary to be able to control the NSLU2 using a utility program. It controls the reset line, allowing the NSLU2 to boot once a serial console has been opened.
Download the source code. Uncompress it, make
, and copy the resulting executable to a directory in your $PATH (or add the nslu2-util directory to your $PATH).
Install the following packages:
apt-get install picocom netcat ethereal
I've just updated this based on Ubuntu 12.04
The USB drivers seem to work by default.
You need may need to install some of the following packages:
apt-get install build-essential mercurial
apt-get install libncurses5-dev
apt-get install netcat.traditional
update-alternatives --set nc /bin/nc.traditional
apt-get install picocom minicom
apt-get install tftpd-hpa tftp-hpa
apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
apt-get install xinetd
Unfortunately, newer Ubuntu distributions include the 'easy to use'
NetworkManager, which destroys everything. Instead, add the following lines
to /etc/network/interfaces
:
Then, restart NetworkManager, and bring up the interface:
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.168.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
sudo service network-manager restart
sudo ifup eth1
After installing the tftpd-hpa
package, the
default tftp directory will be /var/lib/tftpboot
. You
will either need to modify our source tree to match the new
default, or modify /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
,
i.e. change TFTP_DIRECTORY
to match our source.
You may need to adjust ownership and/or permissions to allow
you access to the directory (e.g. chmod a+rwx
/var/lib/tftpboot
if you are in a benign environment.
Configure xinetd
to serve time by
editing /etc/xinetd.d/time
to set disable =
no
, and restart via
.
sudo service xinetd restart
# default: off
# description: An RFC 868 time server. This protocol provides a
# site-independent, machine readable date and time. The Time service sends back
# to the originating source the time in seconds since midnight on January first
# 1900.
# This is the tcp version.
service time
{
disable = no
type = INTERNAL
id = time-stream
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcpar
user = root
wait = no
}
# This is the udp version.
service time
{
disable = no
type = INTERNAL
id = time-dgram
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
user = root
wait = yes
}
Apparently, for some versions of ubuntu there was no obvious ways to coerce xinetd into serving TIME. On the other hand, it's a 5-line Java program, so writing a server for it is left as an exercise to the reader. Have a read of this.
/var/tftpboot
for whatever is set TFTP_DIRECTORY
to in your tftpd configuration.
Add your account to group dialout
to give access
to /dev/ttyUSB0
. You'll need to logout and back in to
update your groups.